Narendra Modi and President Trump are not just similar but theyneed each other at this junctureThe US President’s visit is aimed at boosting his own and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s politicalpro�le. The duo get on like a house on �re and are mirror images of each other

Manish MadanUpdated: 24 Feb 2020, 9:52 AM

While President Donald Trump arrives in India after his acquittal on the charges of abuse of powerand obstruction of Congress — having the dubious distinction of being only the third president inthe US history to be impeached by the House — PM Modi is battling an uprising of millions ofIndians demonstrating and protesting against a fundamentally discriminatory and religiouslybigoted legislation, Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) passed by his Hindu-Nationalistgovernment.

OPINION

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It is also for the �rst time that India’s most powerful Prime Minister has faced an unexpected realopposition, albeit outside the Parliament, from people of India including women protestors.

It is therefore critical that despite the bromance and the hoopla of this historic visit, we must notlose sight of the current political environment that has beleaguered the two embattled leaders of theworld’s largest and the oldest democracies.

‘Namaste Trump’ or ‘Kem Chho Trump,’ brings a full circle to the ‘Howdy! Modi’ event that attractednearly 50,000 Indian-Americans in Houston in September 2019, also attended by Trump. In return,Trump now has been promised ‘millions and millions of people’ to greet him and the First Lady,Melania Trump.

In many ways, Trump and Modi share several similarities. Both leaders derive their politics onarousing nationalism, majoritarianism and pursuing politics of fear and polarization.

Trump started his presidency announcing a travel ban or Muslim ban in 2017, leading up torestricting permanent immigration visas to six additional countries, mostly with Muslim majority.During his last address to the United Nations General assembly (UNGA), he spoke of thegovernments defending their “history, culture and heritage” in the name of national identity whilejustifying his own decision.

Similarly, Modi proclaimed that “[we] were nationalist, are nationalist and will remain nationalist”during his 2019 election rallies. His dictatorial and authoritarian politics with the abrogation ofArticle 370 despite consistent decline in terrorist violence has impacted the only Muslim-dominatedstate of India resulting in the longest-ever internet shut down by a democracy, loss of about 4.96lakh jobs in four months, economic loss of nearly $2.4 billion, arbitrary detention of political leadersunder J&K’s draconian Public Safety Act, and crippling the lives of nearly 8 million people.

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Recognising Trump’s upcoming visit to India, four US Senators including in�uential RepublicanLindsay Graham, in a bipartisan initiative have noted severe consequences of Modi government’sunilateral revocation of Article 370 and have urged the Indian government to restore normalcy inthe state. Only time will tell whether Trump will carry his Senators’ message to his counterpart.

Further similarities include the two strongmen making deeply polarising statements, disparagingentire communities based on race or religion. Trump has called undocumented immigrants as“thugs” and “animals” or Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists despite multiple studiesrevealing that immigrants are less likely to be involved in crime.

Modi on the other hand has extolled his ability to ‘identify violent people by their clothes,’ and hasin the past compared refugee camps that sheltered the victims (mostly Muslims) of Godhra pogromin 2002 as “baby-making factories.”

Similarly, India’s Home Minister, the second most powerful leader, has labelled illegal immigrants asin�ltrators, termites, and promised to throw them into the Bay of Bengal.

While Trump’s policies have defended the detention camps in the US, Modi has blatantly denied itsexistence in India despite being under construction, with the Ministry of Home Affairs issuing amodel Detention Camp Manual in 2019.

Both the leaders’ penchant for nationalism touts their foreign policy as America First and India First.

However, it will be of much interest to �nd the �rst among equals during this trip.

The intersection of saffron-supremacy & white-supremacy

Even as Trump fans white nationalism, Modi caters to Hindu-nationalism, which I have arguedelsewhere as establishing ‘Saffron-Supremacy’ instead – all of them being eerily dangerous topromote in a multicultural and pluralistic society grounded on the principles of egalitarianism,secularism and inclusivity.

In many ways, polarisation of communities has fuelled White-Supremacy and Saffron-Supremacyalike, relying on stoking ungrounded fears of existential crisis, for example, immigrants will invadeAmerica, or Muslims will outnumber Hindu population in India. None of which is evidence-basedbut rooted in polarisation of the “other.”

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In a post 9/11 world, hate disguised as Islamophobia has been normalized to unite the far-right. Theconsequences of such polarity are far-reaching and gravely similar.

Based on the FBI’s annual report, US has witnessed a rise in violent hate crimes and threats with asigni�cant increase in violence against Latinos and transgender people, with Jews and Jewishinstitutions being overwhelmingly targeted of religion-based hate crimes. Much of this is attributedto the hate speech and fear-mongering coming from the right wing of the Republican Party.

Indian-Americans have also increasingly reported victimisation. With unof�cial statistics beingpotentially higher, in 2018 Sikhs were of�cially the third most targeted group of hate crime 4.3% (upfrom 1.5 percent in 2017), anti-Hindu hate crime remained at 1 percent, 18.6 percent were victims ofanti-Islamic (Muslim) bias in 2017.

India has similarly witnessed rise in the communal rhetoric by extreme far-right members of theHindu-nationalist government, resulting in violent campaigns of cow vigilantism and mob lynchingthat has led to the killing of at least 44 people including members of Dalit or Adivasi (indigenous)communities, with 82 percent of victims being Muslims.

Since 2014, Christian minority population has also faced increased persecution, ranking India at the10th place in the list of countries where Christians suffer ‘extreme persecution’ according to OpenDoors USA. Notably, it has moved up from rank 31 in the last 7 years.

Saffron Supremacy & the Emergence of Far-Right Wing Indian-Americans

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, of which PM Modi isone of the most illustrious members today. Considered a fascist paramilitary organisation, their corebelief declares India as a Hindu Rashtra – a view of Hindu exceptionalism which is fundamentallycontrary to India’s secular foundation.

The current political establishment has pendulated India between the two paradigms today, leaningdangerously closer to the notion of Hindu Rashtra, with the constitutional blunder in CAA and policyblunder in NRC and NPR as being distinct markers.

RSS has also systematically spread globally, with many Sangh-af�liated organizations haveestablished their roots in the US — Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad ofAmerica (VHPA), Sewa International USA, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation-USA, Hindu Students Council(HSC), and The Overseas Friends of the Bhartiya Janata Party — USA, to name a few.

A 54-page report, ‘Hindu Nationalism in the United States: A Report on Non-pro�t Groups’, releasedvia sacw.net in 2014 calls into investigation on their funding apparatus. It further suggests‘exploring possible legal culpability of U.S.-based Sangh groups and members in Sangh-led violentacts in South Asia, possible violations of 501(c)(3) (IRS non-pro�t) regulations and restrictions; and

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the involvement of other U.S.-based groups and individuals in supporting violence perpetrated byHindu nationalist groups.’

Propagation of Hindutva-nationalism and Islamophobia is also evident within the Indian diaspora ofthe US, where calls for boycotting of Muslim owned businesses have propagated; Islamophobic andviolent sloganeering made during Republic Day celebration gatherings held across the US.

Calls to rally support to reject Ms. Kshama Sawant’s Seattle City Council Resolution# 31926 thatopposed the NRC and the CAA in India were issued on behalf of Seattle-based,

Sri Venkateswara Temple, a 501(c)(3) certi�ed non-pro�t organization, potentially in violation of theIRS rules that regulate against becoming action organization, or in�uencing legislation … andparticipating in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.’

Indian American (Hindus) being a minority within the US landscape themselves, today have turnedup against their own fellow minorities (Muslims), such is the impact of polarization.

Evidently though, the far-right leaning, radical Hindutva Saffron-Supremacist voices do notrepresent majority of the progressive Indians in the US. According to the Asian American LegalDefense and Education Fund, 64% of Indian-American voters were registered as Democrats (with 12percent republicans and remaining not registered) and 84 percent of the same population havingvoted for a Democratic candidate in 2016 elections. It will be worth examining if Trump-Modibonhomie will translate into electoral gains for Trump among the Indian-Americans in the 2020 USelections.

At this point, it is my hope that President Trump and PM Modi while having united the far-right willnow do the right thing.

I implore them to recognize that the protest against CAA is not about the act of commission (i.e., towhom it is giving citizenship, in fact people applaud the government on this) but it is about the actof omission (i.e., the arbitrary and discriminatory exclusion of Muslims, Jews and Atheist fromgaining fast-track citizenship).

I remind PM Modi of the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, which ensured citizenship to minorities,irrespective of religion. I press upon him to condemn police brutality against the citizens and meetthe protestors to hear their voice, and immediately withdraw the ‘trilogy of disaster’ in CAA-NRC-NPR.

It is my desire to see propagation of religious tolerance, pluralism and recognize that in passingCAA, India stands in violation of her own Constitutional guarantees that promotes equality beforethe law, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenanton Civil and Political Rights, of which she is a signatory member.

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As PM Modi has recently expressed, “India and USA share a common commitment to democracy andpluralism,” I remind him of the Gandhian philosophy, ‘Hindu & Muslims are the left and right eye ofIndia,’ but today India is only looking at the world with one eye open and the other eye shut andbleeding. I hope that he will change that vision.

(The author is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Stockton University in New Jersey. He haswritten, among others, for HuffPost, Newslaundry, and published his research in international journals)

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi US President Donald Trump

Published: 21 Feb 2020, 12:35 PM

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